Re: Scarlett’s comments about insidious abuse that sounds so nice when you try to explain it. That’s one of the most frustrating kinds of emotional abuse to deal with because it’s so hard to explain. People say, “I’m sure he meant well” and “you’re reading too much into it”, but that type of abuser is a master of disguising digs as faux compliments. When you try to retell it, it sounds like you’re a spoiled fool who expects too much from the poor guy. That’s what my dad was so good at - any single one of his tricks sounded innocent enough. And I could never get anyone to listen to ALL of them at once so they could see just how hopeless the pattern was.

And, frankly, my mom totally is that. But so very many people I know did not have that, and the cult of motherhood makes it even more difficult for people to talk about their abuse at their mother’s hand. Whenever I talk about Don’s mom’s latest attempt to weasle back into his life and treat him so shabbily again, someone always comes along and says “But, she’s his mom, and she obviously loves him!” Cuz, you know, people over the internet who have never even talked to *me* about it, let alone Don, can totally tell that by the few comments I make here and there on the subject.

Cuz, you know, moms are ever perfect.

I don’t know exactly how to define emotional abuse - I think it’s different to verbal abuse because in my case at least, he never yelled at me or called me names. I think emotional abuse, like all abuse really, is about undermining someone’s independance and faith in themselves.

With my ex, a close mutual friend of ours - who was far closer to me than she was him - talked a lot about how he was so upset about me leaving him and what a difficult position she was in, caught between us. Did it occour to her that if he had any speck of maturity or responsibility for his actions HE wouldn’t be putting her in the middle like that? So what if he was upset - was I supposed to stay with him forever more just because he *needed* me? Was I meant to sacrifice my happiness and sanity so he he could have things *his* way? I wonder now how much of it was *her* not wanting to think that maybe this great guy who’s a close friend of her husbands was an emotional abuser… nope, far easier to think of me as the bitch who left him

their response to her (gah! drives me crazy, because if just a few people would stand up, people like that might actually back down)

Oh in this case she would, but she’d then go all passive aggressive and make everyone else’s life completely miserable. I got to see it first hand when I turned 21.

In early February of that year I had completely smashed my ankle and the surgeon put me on strict bed rest for 3 months. In mid-March my father died. 2 weeks later she was visiting, gave me a check for my birthday, and then did the same manipulative bullshit she always does and “jokingly” commented about cancelling it when I disagreed with her over something unbelievably trivial. I snapped. Maybe it was the large doses of narcotics, maybe it was the fact that the only person who’d been as horrified by her treatment of me as they should have been* had just died and left me to fend for myself, I don’t know. I’m not very proud of it but I did. Went off on the rude snitty comments she’d made about the state of the house, told her that you’re supposed to give someone a gift because you love them not so you can control their behavior and, since I wasn’t allowed up the stairs, locked myself in the bathroom until they left.

She spent nearly a year treating me the same way you would a dog you’re not entirely sure isn’t rabid, which was great. But she made my aunt and grampa positively miserable, and my mother when she could get a hold of her. (Which is when my aunt gave me the silent treatment. Oddly my grampa didn’t and I think in fact became more chatty.) Since then I see her either at Christmas or Thanksgiving, never both, and then mainly because even though my mom knows it’s healthier for me to stay away there’s still a part of her that doesn’t want her kid to be alone on holidays. She doesn’t mention it and in fact assumes I’m not going, but I can deal with it now that my GM can mostly hold the evil in for one day a year.

I still have the check, uncashed of course. For the record the cost of my freedom was $75. Not sure you can put a price on the first hand proof that the scariest of bullies from my childhood could be a coward.

*(Dad had declared at Christmas that he was never going to her house again after one of her tirades directed at me. Turns out he was totally telling the truth. Heh.)

@Scarlett, it often is one person doing all the work. I think relationships are supposed to involve both parties working? *sigh* And you’re right about how it creeps up. Sometimes it’s an overnight Jeckyll and Hyde switch, too. Some men maintain a facade of niceness until you move in/marry them/invest yourself in some way that makes it not so easy to break up and leave, and then BOOM you meet the abuser.

@Maggie, that IS my definition of emotional abuse. You’re probably right that it’s not most people’s, but I think psychiatrists would back me up on that. Hell, systematic undermining at work can be considered a form of harassment. For all we know, your grandmother was heroically well-adjusted given what circumstances she came from. But her treatment of people - and their response to her (gah! drives me crazy, because if just a few people would stand up, people like that might actually back down) - was all wrong (except in the isolated incidents you mention).

For what it’s worth, I can never condemn anyone for not talking to their parents.

For me it’s not my parents I had to cut off contact with, it was every other relative I have. At this point the grand total of people I’m related to that I speak to more than once a year? 2. My mother, and on occasion her sister. (Who’s not as screwed up as most of the family, but has given me the silent treatment for pointing out that her mother treats me the same way the Spanish Inquisition would a heretic.) There were 2 more, my father and my great aunt, but they passed away.

Not a speck of behavior that most people are referring to when they say abuse, just a systematic destruction of everyone’s self esteem and independence if they have the temerity to imply that my grandmother isn’t the grand high poobah of the universe. If anyone dares to criticize her however, there are immediate tears and you get attacked for being mean. I spent many years as a child trying to figure out why I didn’t really like her and feeling guilty about it– she told me she loved me all the time and bought me lots of things, which to a 5 year old is generally awesome– but never seemed genuinely interested in me and really disliked my dad, who I adored. You know on Everybody Loves Raymond, the way Marie treats Debra? It was almost exactly like that, except directed at a kindergartner who couldn’t defend herself. If you don’t want to be what she wants you to be, she has no use for you.

I eventually figured it out around 12 or so, and why I didn’t much like my other relatives while they were around her; they’d been indoctrinated years ago and had lost any will they may have had to fight back because it was easier just to indulge her. (I once overheard a psychiatrist who I saw for several weeks telling my parents that I was the most stubborn person she had met in her entire career. Just going along wasn’t really a viable option for me.) The only person who ever successfully stood up for me against her was my father, my mom tried but she’d grown up with that woman and just from what I’ve gathered her entire childhood was my unpleasant weekends turned up to 1100. Everyone else wanted to know why I antagonized her. By being myself.

And it’s got to be a cycle that’s only partially been broken: the reason my GM left home and joined the army was to get away from her mother and 2 out of 3 of her sisters are waaaay worse. Now that my great aunt has passed away, I’ve only seen my GM when my grampa’s brother and his wife are in town because she’s the nicest person on the face of the Earth so my GM has to be on her best behavior. (The most startling thing in the world: to walk into that house and get a compliment that was genuine and unaccompanied by a resounding backhand. I stood there blinking for some time with no idea what to say since my reflexive defensive response wasn’t needed.) When other people talk about nice and ‘grandmotherly’, after the instinctive recoil I have to carefully switch my association to my late great aunt, one of my GM’s younger sisters and the only vague concept of the idea I can even imagine.

And I can’t convince a single person who hasn’t seen it in action repeatedly that it’s true. Because if you aren’t related to her, she’s actually kind of impressive. This is a small town Midwestern Catholic girl who joined the army as a teenager in the early 50s, who was a feminist before it went mainstream, supported civil rights, has worked for the fire dept, owned a business, and held elected office. And in all fairness was one of the people who backed me up when everyone was pushing me to have an extremely invasive surgery that I cancelled because I’d gotten a very bad vibe about it due to a series of prep screw-ups. (The other was my dad. First time they’d agreed on anything in over 20 years, I think.)

I’m aware that from a lot of people’s perspectives I got off fairly easily. And that there are far, far worse things out there. But if I hear one more person who’s seen her repeatedly rip me to shreds in public for not fitting in with the rest of the family or slightly disagreeing with her tell me that I’m “too sensitive” and need to try harder, I’m going to snap.

When someone mocks you for crying after they’re the one who made you cry, there’s something not right about that. Late last year I was upset about something and my mother mentioned that she almost never sees me cry, short of a funeral. That’s because I learned not to.

The thing that really frustrates me is that people often don’t get how creeping abuse can be. We had a great relationship for two years, but after we became engaged, he became more and more unreasonable until he was calling me selfish and not speaing to me for several days because I wouldn’t cancel plans with a mate just because he got a whim to see me. Duh, of COURSE I wouldn’t have gotten involved with someone had they behaved like that after a week. But when it creeps in over two and a half years, and you throw them being diagnossed with mental illness into it? Then it becomes a lot harder to recognise andwomen/people are not stupid for not recognising escalating behavior.

I read their stories of abuse and survive and it curls my hair six ways from Sunday. How can I pretend that there’s something “wrong” with so many women who hate men? There is reason, there is reason, there is reason. And there but for the grace of Whomever go I, because heaven knows I’ve narrowly avoided a few awful situations not on some magical skill or by “trying” hard enough, but because I am *lucky*.

For what it’s worth, I can never condemn anyone for not talking to their parents. I just wish that more of the people I know hadn’t been forced to grow up in abusive situations.